A survey of the educational system of the Philippine islands by the Board of educational survey, created under acts 3162 and 3196 of the Philippine Legislature.

262 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

created in this way, the real aim of teaching phonics is to help the child
in the identification and pronunciation of words in natural situations.
While the development of phonetic elements should be done in a
period distinctly separate from the reading period, the children in all
grades should be held responsible during the reading period for the
application of those phonetic elements already developed in identification and pronunciation of new words. This application of phonics was
rarely seen in our observation of primary work.
The Commission has recommended that each primary school be
equipped with large type for printing and heavy cardboard for the
making of charts and cards. The phonic charts which a teacher makes
are much better than the prepared charts. It is an advantage to have
the words belonging to certain families or phonograms printed on the
chart from time to time as they occur in the reading lessons.
In developing words that belong to certain families, care should be
taken that no word is listed whose meaning is not known for meaning
and form help to make the percept of the word clear. Moreover, if a
child does not know the meaning of a word, he will not use the word
when talking.
LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
Under this heading is included all training given in the periods
scheduled as Language and Conversational English. One hundred such
recitations were observed in the first four grades.
The teaching of English to the children of the Philippines is
undoubtedly one of the most difficult and most important duties of the
teacher. If schools are to give these children a common language
which can be used as a medium of communication between the different language groups and also give those who will go to the intermediate
and high school an adequate command of English the greatest care
must be exercised.
SITUATIONS FOR LANGUAGE TRAINING.-If the language work is
to be successful then situations must be utilized which will cause children
to be interested in talking. This means that topics which are related
to children's interests out of school must be brought into the classrooms.
In the rank and file of classrooms they are not now so brought in. While
some of the children's interests will be universal throughout the Philippines,
others will vary. The same topics will hardly be of equal interest to
the children of the mountains and the lowlands or the children in cities
and barrios. The Commission has found no record of a study of
children's interests that would furnish a basis for the selection of language
topics. It is strongly recommended that such a study be made by people
in the field.